Ryoji Ikeda @ DHC ART

Ryoji Ikeda's massive installations spanning the two DHC ART sites are an opus on the analysis, representation and interpretation of data. The primary medium used by Ikeda in this series is light; one part video projection and one part illumination of plastic and filmstrip transparency. Several of the datasets represented consist of cosmic maps and information relating to the sequence of DNA, I did not recognise the majority though; their contents are not made explicit and so the data exists without context, as an abstraction removed from the phenomena which it was created to describe. Ikeda is also a composer of music, a clicking, pulsing electronic score accompanies the video projection of the data, which runs about 8 minutes. Through the context of the gallery and the "curation" of the data and re-presentation as a film clip, Ikeda disembodies the raw data and projects it into the realm of aesthetics, where it becomes form and experience, information itself interpreted as art.


DHC/ART: Ryoji Ikeda (English) from DHC/ART on Vimeo.

Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis

Čiurlionis, primarily a composer of music, produced a body of around 300 paintings and drawings in six years (1903-1909).

Mandala rooms in Jodorowsky's "The Holy Mountain".

Intaglio Project 2 Planning

The prompt for my second project for Intaglio printing class is simply "Architecture, cityscape and the urban environment" and it needs to include at least one line technique (drypoint, engraving, etching) and at least one tone technique (aquatint, photo-etch, sugarlift, whiteground) to produce an edition of 7 consistent prints and 3 "states" or proofs that are all different. We've had demos on most of the techniques involved except photo-etching, which is of course the one I want to focus on.

Conceptually I started thinking about what is interesting to me about "architecture, cityscape and the urban environment" (which are things I thought about a lot during my "Metacities" project last year) and more so than the physical forms of the architecture of the city, it is always the experience - what it means to be in those spaces, the way the individual exists and interacts within and shapes the city/environment, that presents interest to me. The choice people make to live in certain cities or just a city in general, the choices they make in collectively shaping the city socially and physically, what is it that draws us to certain places, that we think we can get in one place and possibly not somewhere else?

I thought about living in London, the bipolarity of modern architecture and a new culture growing symbiotically out of a city far older than colonized North America, the experience of constant, everyday reminders of newness and novelty and change dichotomized alongside the permanence of fixed history and tradition. The opportunities available there included access to some of the "best" museums and galleries in the world, venues that house not only important historical work but present the newest big shows and exhibitions, it's a stop for every touring musician and band, it felt like a place of exposure, where artists, musicians and designers can potentially receive very real attention and establish themselves - cities are referred to as "centers" of art and culture, the separate but connected locales of a world stage, nodal points where these things are cultivated. 

There is a desire tied to the idealized City that promises the individual the forefront of progress, witness at the event horizon of novelty and change where more new options are available, and I remembered William Gibson describing cities as "vast, multilayered engines of choice":

"I walked through my hometown, imagining it a city. What I was imagining, I now see, was an increase not in size but in number of choices. Cities afforded more choices than small towns, and constantly, by increasing the number and randomization of potential human and cultural contacts. Cities were vast, multilayered engines of choice, peopled primarily with strangers. You never know whom you might meet in the city. In a small town, you’re less likely to encounter people or things or situations you haven’t encountered previously.
As a boy, I took myself away to cities as quickly as I could and have lived in them ever since. When I travel now, I travel mainly to cities, and I travel to return to those I know, taking a deepening pleasure in the serial experience. The idea of visiting a fascinating city only once saddens me, and I seldom have a city I've come to know without wondering if I'll see it again. But in our ageographical existence, I am never entirely not in London, entirely not in Tokyo.
The Internet, which I think of as a sort of meta-city, has made it possible for people who don't live in cities to master areas of expertise that previously required residence in a city, but I think it's still a faith in concentrated choice that drives migration to cities." -William Gibson

The "ageographical", virtual existence established by technology like the Internet is something I have grown up with, it is taken for granted that from anywhere with wifi I have a form of access to data representing happenings in all other places. Gibson dreamed of the vast array of opportunity offered by existence in a city (as people still do) but there is now a form of equalization facilitated by the information age through the mass dissemination of "culture" or spectacle and geographical location is no longer the prime determinant of what we are exposed to (albeit exposure on a 2D screen is something completely different from "lived experience" but I won't get into that). The migration to cities is not obviated by the connective digital landscape but supplemented; services like Google Maps and social networking and mobile devices overlay a user-controlled experience onto the cityscape, we're probably all familiar with finding out about things and where to go in the real city online - "word of mouth" is still fundamental but the "mouth" is more and more a virtual one.

Google "Project Glass" augmented reality head-mounted display

I also grew up with an idea that was seeded into the collective unconscious largely by Gibson: an immersive virtual reality that seemed only just around the corner in the 80s and 90s. If the city is a vast engine of choice then the virtual city is an infinite one. It was only a matter of time, given the exponential technological advance, before we would all be strapping on headsets and literally plugging in to a fully sensory experience of a virtual world that would drown out consensus reality completely. I don't know what anyone reading Neuromancer in 1984 imagined 2012 would have been like but we're still mostly staring at flat planes, struggling to keep building our physical cities, nevermind constructing the new urban landscapes out of photons and data, no one has uploaded their consciousness to the Internet and properly abandoned the world of the flesh as far as I know, and experiments like Second Life are pretty much the most we have to show of the embarrassing state of the virtual worlds initiative. Still, I feel like the trajectory is still there, even if technology isn't, and beyond our experience in the real city, many of us seek the advancement toward the collective, ageographical, user-developed digital architecture of utopian cyberspace.

With this project I want to imagine what could have been or what could still eventually be, a sort of homage to the halted dream of the new urban landscape, which is a modular virtual one we can influence at will and control at the true rate of novelty. The creation or visualization of "spaces", whether they are architectural or city-like or not is a constant in human creative ideation and is a fundamental meditative healing act in many traditions - I see a lot of similar psychological inclinations linking projection of virtual worlds and Mahayana purelands. As the pursuit of experience of spaces which offer us what we want continues into this kind of territory, it becomes less about the physical structure and materiality of the city's presence and more about the effects we wish to evoke, functionality will take a back seat to the activation of numinous symbols and the human psyche will become the true foundation upon which the post-urban environment is built.

Urban Tribes, Subcultures and Neo-Tribalism

As early as 1950, sociologist David Riesman distinguished between a majority, "which passively accepted commercially provided styles and meanings, and a 'subculture' which actively sought a minority style ... and interpreted it in accordance with subversive values.

In considering the "wearer" for my designs placed in the concept of the speculative metacity, my project has turned toward urban tribes and subcultures. Examples of urban tribes are the punk movement that has persisted since the 70s, art collectives, various music and clubbing scenes, gangs, essentially even religious groups. When I design, I always feel like I'm picturing a certain group that may or may not yet exist, and depicting them and how they look. A defining principle of an urban tribe is that they seek forms of expression which are not ubiquitous within the dominant culture, visual self representation/differentiation (fashion) is very important in establishing group or individual identity, especially for those who intend to position themselves in a sense outside the broader society. Aesthetic codes and identity symbols are fundamental to fashion, self expression and human society itself.

These kinds of groups are inextricably linked to fashion and other creative communities; punk continues to be the most obvious "tribal" example but however countercultural, the community nature of music-based and other subcultures facilitates an inspiration/contributory relationship with fashion, art and other forms of expression.

Punks in the 70s/80s

Kawakami from d-beat band Disclose and friend (early 2000s), d-beat is a very specific genre of music yet an entire subculture has formed around it, most popular in Japan and Scandinavia but known around the world

Angelina Jolie and Johnny Lee Miller in Hackers (1995), depictions of urban tribes in fiction have the potential to inform their real life equivalents

Bosozoku, a kind of motorbike/vehicle subculture, commonly dressed in long overcoats covered with painted slogans, wearing boots, baggy jumpsuits, surgical masks and badges.

In all ape species there is a tribal number, a manageable limit of organization and interaction; within civilisations we necessarily form groups of hopefully like-minded people. Sociologists have described 4 or 5 "groups of organization" that form within society, in “In Search of How Societies Work - Tribes: The First and Forever Form”, a 2006 paper by David Ronfeldt, these are described as tribes, hierarchical institutions, markets and networks. In the present, the Information Age, I feel that the term "networks" has taken on a different meaning, potentially global but potentially small communities: digital tribes.


Neo-Tribalism is a modern sociological phenomenon that has developed in response to civilization, or the modern corporation/state society, wherein smaller social groupings of like-minded or themed communities are formed. The most casual form of Neo-Tribalism is the urban tribe, a term first coined in 1985 by French sociologist Michel Maffesoli in Le temps des tribus: le déclin de l'individualisme dans les sociétés postmodernes. According to Maffesoli, urban tribes are microgroups of people who share common interests in metropolitan areas. The members of these relatively small groups tend to have similar worldviews, dress styles and behavioral patterns. Their social interactions are largely informal and emotionally-laden, which stands in sharp contrast to the formalized Machiavellian constructs of corporate culture. The term was expanded upon by author Ethan Watters in Urban Tribes: A Generation Redefines Friendship, Family, and Commitment as “an intricate community of young people who live and work together in various combinations, form regular rituals, and provide the support of an extended family.”

Work In Progress: Sketchbook

I haven't had Internet access at home for almost a week so I haven't been able to update this blog! Anyway I've been putting my sketchbook together, working on designs, trying to sort out some screenprinting.
The recommended sketchbook process for students in the CSM Foundation Fashion Design program begins with gathering lots of printed research and in the first few pages of the sketchbook, assembling a collage to immediately convey the general feel or mood of the project through references images, inspiration and some drawing and annotation. It should be visually appealing and give the viewer a clear idea of where design ideas for the project are being drawn from.

From an early point in this project I want to convey moving beyond the physical city metropolis toward a more cyberpunk representation of the meta-city concept, which I tried to encompass with these circuitry-like glowing prints made from drawings of city structures: the "actual" city and the underlying metaphysical "cyberspace" of the city. This is the basic concept I'm attempting to design around; "the future is now", here are garments for those navigating the (de facto cyberpunk) metacity.

"Lines of light ranged in the nonspace of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding...Symbols, figures, faces, a blurred, fragmented mandala of visual information."

"Expanding - and flowed, flowered for him, fluid neon origami trick, the unfolding of his distanceless home, his country, transparent 3d chessboard extending to infinity. Inner eye opening to the stepped scarlet pyramid of the Eastern Seaboard Fission Authority burning beyond the green cube of the Mitsubishi Bank of America, and high and very far away he saw the spiral arms of military systems, forever beyond his reach."
-William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984)

After laying out the initial tone of the project in the first few pages, I'm incorporating more of my own work that responds to the research and inspiration and then getting into actual garment ideas. As the focus moves toward figure and fashion design drawing, print and details are explored, as well as fabric samples and photographs of draping/garment experiments that inform further designs.

LED dress, Hussein Chalayan f/w 2007/08

CityLIFE and Metabolist Movement

I still keep an eye on architectural visualization, it was my first foray into working in digital media beyond Photoshop and graphic design. This is the winning entry by Jean-Marc Emy for the CityLIFE challenge on Ronen Bekerman's architectural visualization blog and I had to post it because it's pretty in line with the aesthetic of my project and is quite evokative of the cities described in William Gibson's Neuromancer which I'm currently reading.

"After reading Project Japan: Metabolism Talks, a book by Rem Koolhaas about the 60’s – 70’s avant-garde architectural group titled “Metabolism”, Jean-Marc Emy decided that his proposal for the CityLIFE challenge will be a tribute to the Metabolists works."

After checking out this entry I did some research on the Metabolist architectural movement: Their visions for cities of the future inhabited by a mass society were characterized by large scale, flexible, and expandable structures that evoked the processes of organic growth. In their view, the traditional laws of fixed form and function were obsolete. Metabolism arose in post-World War II Japan, and so much of the work produced by the movement is primarily concerned with housing issues.

The Nakagin Capsule Tower by Kisho Kurokawa

Metabolist designs relied heavily on advanced technology, and they often consist of adaptable plug-in megastructures.

"The young Japanese architects who launched themselves with the manifesto ‘Metabolism 1960’ at the World Design Conference in Tokyo that year had all been teenagers in 1945, when the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were wiped out by atomic bombs. Devastatingly aware of the impermanence of built spaces and the destructibility of cities, they responded to the widespread housing crisis of postwar Japan by calling for more flexible and dynamic urban models. Promising to design spaces for living bodies that would be more in line with the metabolic processes of those bodies, they conceived of cities as living, moving and evolving creatures." -source 

Kenji Ekuan, Dwelling City, 1964

This kind of city-thinking seems applicable now more than ever, I definitely want to do some drawings based on the Metabolist movement and explore them as part of the city my project is based around.

Yayoi Kusama @ Victoria Miro

Victoria Miro gallery is currently showing some of Yayoi Kusama's most recent work, I really liked the organic form sculptures that look like they could be either extraterrestrial or microscopic amoeba things. I was reminded of the flora and fauna from the alien worlds of Masaaki Yuasa's Kaiba:

Kusama, Y. (2012) Yayoi Kusama New Works. London: Victoria Miro Gallery

Kaiba (2008) Directed by Masaaki Yuasa

runurunu

runurunu s/s and a/w 2012, alien technology for navigating future cities and holographic subspaces.

Cybernetic Organism

"The cyborg would not recognize the Garden of Eden; it is not made of mud and cannot dream of returning to dust."

A cyborg is a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction. Social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, a world-changing fiction. By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs. The cyborg is our ontology; it gives us our politics. The cyborg is a condensed image of both imagination and material reality, the two joined centres structuring any possibility of historical transformation. -Donna Haraway's A Cyborg Manifesto

Mariko Mori, "Subway" 1994 

Givenchy fw 1999

Ghost in the Shell (1995) Directed by Mamoru Oshii, based on work by Masamune Shirow

Donna Haraway, "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Routledge, 1991), pp.149-181.